Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Codex Climaci Rescriptus Touring USA

Two years ago Westminster College auctioned off the Codex Climaci Rescriptus with the help of Sotheby's. The Codex is a 6th century document and an important manuscript witness to the Greek text of the Gospels. It includes a Palestinian Aramaic Bible and Syriac works by St. John Climacus (John of the Ladder).

The codex is a 137 leaf remnant of eight separate manuscripts, six of which are in Aramaic, which have been dated to the sixth century AD.; and two of which are in Greek, which have been dated to the seventh or eighth century AD. The Aramaic sections contains significant parts of the four Gospels, as well as the Acts and Epistles, and the remains of a large volume of the Old Testament in Aramaic.

The Codex will be touring Oklahoma City, New York, and the Vatican. See the official website here:
Passages: A Worldwide Traveling Exhibition http://explorepassages.com/

Aramaic was spoken in Palestine in Jesus' time, as was Greek. Jesus was an Aramaic speaking Palestinian. Aramaic is closer to Arabic than to Hebrew. It is a very old language. Compared to Arabic and Aramaic, Hebrew is a relatively new language. All three are in the Afro-Asiatic language family. Kushitic and Chadic languages such as Amharic and Hahm are also in this language family.

This is why one must look at both Hebrew and Arabic when studying the Old Testament. Many misinterpretations of Old Testament passages are due to overlooking the older Arabic roots when doing translation. An example is the story of Noah's ark landing in Armenia. The actual location is Har-Meni which is Mount Meni or Meru in East Africa. This was noted in 1874 by Godfrey Higgins in his monograph Anacalypsis: An Inquiry into the Origins of Languages, Nations and Religions. Higgins recognized that "Armenia" could mean "mount of Meru… that is, Ar or Er-Meni-ia, the country of mount Meru or Meni." Further the word ararat is an Arabic word. It is Har-arat, meaning Mount of Vehemence, a reference to the intensity of divine judgment.

Noah lived in Africa during the late Halocene Wet Period, in the region of Lake Chad. During Noah's time, the waters of Mega-Chad extended many miles beyond the present boundaries of Lake Chad, flooding an area approximatley the same square miles as the modern nation of Sudan, Africa's largest country. Bor-nu, on the southwestern rim of the Chad Basin, means "Land of Noah." This is the only place on the surface of the Earth that claims to be biblical Noah's homeland.